By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Author
ATLANTA (AP) — A key vaccine advisory committee met for the primary time below new U.S. Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a number one voice within the U.S. anti-vaccine motion.
Tuesday’s assembly was, to some extent, enterprise as common, although with a serious query looming: Who would consider the committee’s suggestions?
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ two-day assembly took up vaccine coverage questions that had been placed on maintain when the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies abruptly postponed the panel’s February assembly.
“It will be striking” if the assembly is routine, given “signals and alarms” that recommend modifications and maybe reductions in federal vaccination efforts, mentioned Jason Schwartz, a Yale College well being coverage researcher who research authorities well being companies.
However Tuesday’s assembly began pretty routine, with most members becoming a member of by a webcast. They mentioned an mpox vaccine and the way the winter flu and COVID-19 seasons had been going.
CDC official asks about COVID-19 vaccines
The dialog took a flip when a CDC official summarized a committee workgroup dialogue in regards to the waning COVID-19 pandemic, and requested whether or not the panel would possibly contemplate altering vaccination suggestions. For instance, as a substitute of recommending seasonal photographs for all Individuals 6 months and older, ought to the suggestions be extra centered — at the very least for sure age teams — on individuals with power diseases or in any other case at larger danger?
“I guess I am surprised we’re considering a risk-based recommendation,” mentioned committee member Dr. Denise Jamieson, dean of the College of Iowa’s medical college.
She anxious it will likely be tougher to implement, and will trigger extra complications for sufferers who wish to get photographs and have them lined by insurance coverage.
Dr. Jamie Loehr, a household drugs physician in Itasca, New York, mentioned he’s in favor of a risk-based advice but additionally anxious about feasibility and the message it could ship.
“COVID is still a fairly dangerous disease and very very common,” he mentioned. “We are not talking about 10 cases of mpox. We are talking about thousands of hospitalizations and deaths.”
A vote on the thought may come on the subsequent committee assembly, scheduled for June.
Who will take up the committee’s suggestions?
The 15-member panel of out of doors scientific consultants, created in 1964, makes suggestions to the director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. CDC administrators nearly at all times approve these suggestions on how Meals and Drug Administration-cleared vaccines must be used. The CDC’s ultimate suggestions usually are not binding, however for many years they’ve been broadly heeded by docs and decide the scope and funding of vaccination applications.
The committee was slated to vote Wednesday afternoon on whether or not to make new suggestions relating to three sorts of vaccines, together with one for meningitis and one other to forestall a mosquito-borne sickness referred to as chikungunya.
It’s not clear who would determine whether or not to simply accept these suggestions.
The Trump administration named Susan Monarez as performing CDC director in January, and final month picked her to steer the company. However whereas she’s awaiting Senate affirmation, Monarez has basically recused herself from common director duties due to federal legislation round vacancies, mentioned two CDC officers, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to debate company issues and feared being fired.
Which means any committee suggestions made Wednesday appears more likely to fall to Kennedy. When an AP reporter requested an HHS spokesperson, he mentioned he was trying into the query however didn’t instantly have a solution.
Throughout his Senate affirmation hearings, Kennedy informed lawmakers he isn’t “antivaccine.” However since taking workplace, he has promised to “investigate” youngsters’s photographs and to take a brand new take a look at the opportunity of hyperlinks between childhood vaccinations and autism — a principle that has been debunked by numerous research, together with at the very least a dozen that concerned CDC researchers.
The panel’s chair, Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt College, mentioned she didn’t know who would determine whether or not to log off on any suggestions.
The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Academic Media Group and the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis. The AP is solely accountable for all content material.
Initially Revealed:
